When a guy groped me in a park on a first date, a friend recommended I give him a chance because it could’ve been a misunderstanding. When a boyfriend ignored my complaints about pain during sex and kept going, a therapist told me that men can’t help themselves.

So, I settled. A lot. I ignored my nagging feeling that I wasn’t getting what I wanted, believing that would be too much to ask.

After a few years, I got tired of it. I decided that if being in a relationship required hiding my feminism and putting up with sexism, I’d rather just be single.

So, I spent a year deprioritizing dating and focusing on my career. I worked through the fear that being single made me inadequate and got comfortable with it.

When I met my current partner, I decided I’d rather risk things not working out over my feminism than compromise it. I told him feminism was important to me in the beginning, and I made a promise to look out for myself and not put up with certain things.

If you don’t follow the same rules, that doesn’t make you a bad feminist. There are many reasons someone might not have that privilege. Someone might stay with an abusive partner, for example, because they’re financially dependent on them or have been threatened by them.

ButI’ve pledged to follow these rules to stay true to my feminism while dating whenever I safely and comfortably can.

1. I won’t hide my feminism to get someone to like me. If they have a problem with it, I don’t want to date them anyway.

2. I won’t buy into the myth that I do or don’t “deserve” certain people due to my looks, my class, or my achievements.

3. I won’t feel obligated to have sex with someone just because they’re expecting it.

9. I’ll keep people who routinely say negative things about oppressed groups at a distance, and I won’t feel bad about it.

10. I’ll respectfully question loved ones’ sexist, racist, or otherwise oppressive word choices or assumptions. And I’ll with the belief that they want to be better allies but just don’t know how and the intention to help them.

11. I won’t let anyone convince me I’m “too sensitive” for suffering when others suffer, “angry” for caring about “small” injustices, or “closed-minded” for opposing others’ decisions just because they don’t personally feel the same way.

12. I won’t change my beliefs just because the majority of people around me believe otherwise.

48. I’ll speak up even about the smallest things that bug me so my partner has all the information necessary to accommodate me. I’ll view these conversations as mutually beneficial, not adversarial.

49.I’ll sympathize when I hurt my partner rather than defending myself.

50. If a partner is making it hard for me to follow these rules, I’ll express that with the understanding that if it leads us to break up, it’s for the better.

***

I’ve noticed a drastic difference in my mental health when I’m following these rules and when I’m not.

In my last relationship, when I compromised them all the time, I was constantly irritable because I was suppressing so much anger. I’d hide what I wanted and get mad at my partner for not giving me it.

In my current relationship, I notice this feeling creep up occasionally, and that’s when I know I’m not being true to myself. Once I speak up about my needs as a feminist, I feel valued in the relationship again – because I’m valuing myself.

You’re free to follow or disregard these rules as you wish. As I said, telling others how to have relationships is actually anti-feminist, even if you’re advocating feminist values.

But I’m offering them regardless because I wish I had them years ago. I wish I knew it was okay to ignore what my friends said and honor my needs. I wish I knew that expecting people to respect my boundaries was reasonable.

In short, I wish I knew it was okay to go against what the majority seemed to think. If the majority of people believe something, that doesn’t make it right – it may just prove we have a long way to go.

And living according to your own values, regardless of what others think, is important because it’s ultimately about consent.

The importance of consent in relationships isn’t just about sex. It’s also about making sure you’re consenting to the kinds of relationships you get into and the beliefs that inform them.

And if the beliefs you want to follow are feminist ones, this list is one place to start.

Suzannah Weiss is a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism. She is a New York-based writer whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, Salon, Seventeen, BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, Bustle, and more. She holds degrees in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Modern Culture and Media, and Cognitive Neuroscience from Brown University. You can follow her on Twitter @suzannahweiss. Read her articles here.